In the autumn of 1872 a group of men, some of whom were then prominent in Nebraska history, Judge Elmer S. Dundy and Colonel Watson B. Smith, and one who afterward achieved national fame as an American explorer, Lieutenant Frederick Schwatka, and another who has since become known throughout Europe and America as a picturesque character and showman, Colonel Wm. F. Cody, participated in what proved to be the last romantic buffalo hunt upon the western plains of the state of Nebraska. Elmer S. Dundy was a pioneer who had come to Nebraska in 1857. He had been a member of the territorial legislature for two successive terms; he was appointed a territorial judge in 1863, and became the first United States district judge after the admission of the state into the union. Colonel Watson B. Smith at that time held the office of clerk of the United States district and circuit courts for the district of Nebraska. Some years afterward he met a tragic death by being shot (accidentally or by assassination) in the corridors of the federal building in the city of Omaha. Colonel Smith was a lovable man, of the highest unimpeachable integrity and a most efficient public officer. There was also among the number James Neville, who at that time held the office of United States attorney and who afterward became a judge of the district court of Douglas county. He added zest, vim, and spirit by reason of some personal peculiarities to be mentioned later on. These men, with the writer of this sketch, were anxious to have the experience and the enjoyment of the stimulating excitement of participating in a buffalo hunt before those native wild animals of the plains should become entirely extinct. To them it was to be a romantic incident in their lives and long to be remembered as an event of pioneer days. They enjoyed the luxury of a pullman car from Omaha to North Platte, which at that time was little more than a railway station at a division point upon the Union Pacific, and where was also located a military post occupied by a battalion of United States cavalry. [Illustration: MEMORIAL FOUNTAIN Erected in Antelope Park, Lincoln, Nebraska, by Deborah Avery Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, in memory of Mary M. A. Stevens, First Regent of the Chapter (1896-1898). Dedicated, June 17, 1914. Cost $300] Lieutenant Frederick Schwatka, a regular army officer and American explorer, at one time commanded an arctic expedition in search of traces of the remains of Dr. Franklin. At another time he was in command of an exploring expedition of the Yukon river. At another time he commanded an expedition into the northernmost regions of Alaska in the interest of the New York _Times_. He also became a writer and the author of three quite well known books: _Along Alaska's Great River_, _Nimrod in the North_, and _Children of the Cold_.